Hollyford Valley- Fiordland National Park

Catch-up (Late September 2019)

The DOC campground at Cascade Creek is a great place to base yourself if you're wanting to spend a few days exploring the Milford Road & Fiordland National Park. It's also the last DOC campground before Milford Sound, 44kms away.

This is our third trip down the Milford Road and while we've pretty much explored every nook & crannie it's always good to check places out again; in different weathers & seasons. We stopped at the Hollyford Valley lookout (Pop's View) which is just past the Divide, the Key Summit Walk and the the trail end of the Routeburn Track.

One very hopeful Kea was strutting his stuff up and down the railings and along the log below the 'Do Not Feed the Kea' sign. Failing to win anyone over he flew to the roof of a nearby vehicle before checking out the windscreen's rubber surround for taste. As we left he was being chased off one vehicle only to land on another as it arrived. Eventually, I'm sure, he would have found some one to feed him.

We headed off down the Hollyford Valley (which is now heavily damaged after the recent rain storm), passing over many of the alpine streams that tumble down from the Seppentine Range & Humboldt Mountains above into the Hollyford River below. David spies a stream out his window that he thinks will make a great photo opportunity. 

And what a stunning scene it is; thick green mosses cover the rocks, luxuriant ferns fill the spaces along the edge of cascading stream and the surrounding trees are dripping with emerald green mosses. Dappled sunlight reaches into the back depths of this magical scene; this is what a rain forest looks like. I stay for quite some time taking way too many photos, I just can't get enough of the beautiful scenery.

And then just a kilometre further along the road this is what nature can do to those beautiful sights. A stream flows down through the middle of a large tree and rock slide that blocked the Hollyford Road for several weeks back in September 2013.

We first visited the Hollyford Valley in 2014, just a few months after the landslide, when the road was still a dusty track through the slide and many large mature trees were caught up in the mud & rocks, their leafy canopy turning brown and dying amongst the rocks and mud. The trees are still standing but are now covered in moss and lichen as they slowly rot away.

There are photos of that previous visit in this blog link.  The area is still rocky and barren but colourful lichen covers many of the rocks and logs and a few shrubs, ferns and grasses are now growing in amongst the fallen debris.

Sadly due to the recent Fiordland storm, Gunns Camp had a large mudslide wash through it, along with severe flooding from the river. The camp is now closed until further notice. Hopefully the owners will be able to restore their quirky campground although from the aerial shots I've seen there is a lot of damage.

I wonder if this is (was) the only hand wound petrol pump in New Zealand. I was surprised at how few winds it took to pump in this guy's gas. 

Here's a link to a photo of the flooding at Gunns Camp, where guests were evacuated by helicopter after a night from hell. This link is a video of the camp as they were leaving in the helicopter.

In the meantime, oblivious to the destruction nature would wrought in a few months time, we carry on up the Hollyford Road. 

I know several of the swingbridges over the Hollyford River were washed away and all of the tramping tracks are closed due to rock slides, washouts and missing bridges. This one is on the Moraine Creek Route.

While I'm taking photos of the river from the bridge I spot a tiny yellow flash zipping out, dipping and diving over the rushing water and back again to a large rock. It's a male Tomtit/Miromiro collecting insects.

Towards the end of the Hollyford Road I know there's an old grave with a sad story, it's right on the edge of the river, above a stony bank and along a short track. This time the sign post at the roadside is missing.

I locate it by spotting a scrape in the undergrowth where cars have parked in the past (and one of the short posts where the sign should have been is still there) but unless you knew about it, you'd not find it. Which is a shame, I'd like to hope that Donald Keith doesn't ever get forgotten about. Now I wonder how his lonely grave fared in the flooded river.

At the end of the road we sit on the tray of the ute and hurriedly eat our lunch because the sandflies are out in force today. We're overlooking the confluence of the  Humboldt Creek & Hollyford River and another swing bridge which is at the beginning of the Hollyford Track, a 4-8 day tramp to the ocean.

Afterwards we walked the short steep track up to the Humboldt Falls lookout (both the Hollyford Track & this one are closed at the moment due to storm damage). The three tier Humboldt Falls, while spectacularly high are a little underwhelming when seen from way across the otherside of the valley.

I zoom in to the top of each tier and find this more fascinating.

The top tier

I wonder how deep the  pools are behind the overflow and if anyone has ever abseiled down to them for a dip.

The Bottom Tier

Two days later, and after the light dusting of snow at Cascade Creek, I headed off on my own mini tiki-tour checking for photo opportunities and to see where the snow has fallen. My first stop was at the top of Lake Gunn. 

I'm the only one around except for pair of Paradise Ducks who I surprise while they're moseying about in the nearby shallows. They honk their disapproval at being disturbed and head off out into the lake breaking up my reflections as payback.

Our camp is at the far end of the lake, there used to be a lovely little DOC camp here at the top end but it got overrun with campers which left no room for day trippers so it was closed down. 

Snow has fallen at road level as I pass through the Divide which is below Key Summit and the end of the Routeburn Track.

I stop again at Pop's Lookout, high above the Hollyford Valley.

There's no Kea to greet me today, just another Tomtit fluff-ball flitting about.

Across from the lookout are the Darran Mountains and the Lake Marian valley, a tough tramping track heads up the hanging valley past the Marian Cascade and Falls to a beautiful alpine lake. We walked the track on one of our previous visits. This whole area is now closed due to the storm damage.

I carried on down the road and came across a few hopeful tourists waiting at Marian Corner; the  junction of the Milford & Hollyford Roads. The road through to Milford is closed due to the avalanche risk and they're waiting to see if it will open.

I have a chat with the coffee-cart guy, telling him he has a captive market but he tells me he's waiting too and can't sell to anyone. His permit only allows for him to sell coffee at Monkey Creek which is further on down the Milford Road. I think he must be very keen, the nearest civilization is back at Te Anau about 80kms away.

I'm don't hold out much hope that the road will open for them, it's cold, very misty and the cloud is dropping even lower, it feels like it might even snow some more. 

I head off down the Hollyford Road stopping just a couple of kilometres further on at the Marian Cascade carpark. I cross over the swingbridge taking a photo looking up the Hollyford River from the middle of the bridge. This swingbridge was washed away in the recent floods, just as the helicopter evacuated more tourists stranded in the carpark.

I walked to the top of the Marian Cascade to take some photos and have the track to myself. Most of those waiting for the road to open would have no idea there this stunning little gem is just down the road. 

I now wonder how the boardwalk up the side of the Cascade survived in the flood; the water would have been raging down here to the river below.

On the way back down the path I stopped to take some slow-mo photos of some little water trickles flowing out of a moss and fern covered bank.

And then it's one more photo of the river as I cross back over the bridge.

Back at Marian Corner many of the cars waiting for the road to open before have now been replaced by new arrivals. There's also a kea entertaining the visitors (not the one from the lookout as this one has a band)...

...I take the opportunity of educate these visitors that they are not allowed to feed the Kea, human food is bad for them and endangers their health and also makes them dependent on human food and stops them from foraging for their own food. Before I'm finished someone else arrives and throws the bird more Cheezels. I give up! 

One last photo of the Hollyford River & a snow dusted East Peak at the tail end of the Darran Mountains. 

Hollyford Valley

After setting up camp at Cascade Creek our first foray up the Milford Highway was to explore the 18km Hollyford Valley Road which leaves the Milford Road at Marians Corner.

It was a gorgeous day and our first stop was 3kms down the road at the top of Lake Gunn (where a small DOC camp is located) The reflections were perfect. Our camp is located at the other end of the lake through the forest. This camp was always full when we passed in the evenings, full of sleeper vans & motorhomes parked side by side in a small dirt carpark area & on the gravel foreshore. The sandflies were also very active.

At the top of the Hollyford Valley is The Divide, the lowest east-west pass in the Southern Alps and the start of the Routeburn, Caples & Greenstone tracks. The Key Summit walk also leaves from the carpark; we’ll do this on another day.

Travelling over the top of the pass and steeply down the other side and you soon get an idea of how spectacular the scenery is going to be from here into Milford. Jaw droppingly spectacular! We stopped at Pop’s View, a lookout just over the top (I saw Pop’s Cabin at Gunns Camp and suspect there is a connection) This is looking up the Hollyford Valley with the Humboldt Mountains behind.

In the other direction is the soaring Darran Mountain range with the Lake Marian hanging valley taking centre stage. East Peak is in the foreground and Mt Crosscut at the rear. You can’t see it but at the top of the valley is the alpine Lake Marian- we get to see it when we climb Key Summit. At the end of this post you’ll see photos from the Marian Cascade.

We turned into the Hollyford Road at the bottom of pass and drove right through to the lower end wanting to walk to Humboldt Falls first before slowly making our way back up the road exploring as we went.

The Hollyford Track, a 4 day tramping track, starts at the end of the road and ends at Martins Bay on the wild West Coast, this track is unusual in this area in that it has no alpine areas so can be walked year round. There’s a "short" (4-6hr return) walk to the Hidden Falls along the track but I decided to cheat and just take the reward of the swingbridge at the very beginning of the walk, it crossed the Humboldt Creek just as it joined the Hollyford River. There were others too, here just to walk back & forward over the bridge.

A 30 minute return, short steep climb from the carpark leads up to the impressive 200 metre high three tier cascade of the Humboldt Falls. Although David thought we should have been able to get much closer! He wanted to feel the spray in his face.

Not too far down the road was another swingbridge where we saw the same group of people checking it out. This one crosses the Hollyford River & is at the beginning of the Moraine Track. The track looked quite difficult, was narrow & very muddy with rocks & roots, I don’t think too many people walk it.

The Hollyford River was stunning with it’s glacier fed, aqua blue, ice cold, crystal clear (any more?) water tumbling over the white grey river rocks and boulders.

The next stop was to see who this historic grave sign was for. Along a short track and right on the edge of the river was the gravesite. I wonder where he came from & where he was going, and more importantly who found him. It would have been tough going exploring through the dense bush & crossing the multitude of rivers & streams all those years ago. At least his final resting place was in a beautiful location.

We stopped for a short visit at the quirky & slightly eccentric Gunns Camp, the Settlers Museum was closed. Gunn’s Camp was originally a roadman’s camp during the construction of the Milford Road. Davey Gunn bought the camp in 1952 and it passed to his son, Murray who ran it for 50 years. It’s now run by a charitable trust. Murray Gunn’s signpost brought a smile to my face especially the pointer at the bottom to himself & the one to heaven.

Murray obviously had a great sense of humour, there many signs of it around the buildings; a stand-alone gate with a sign “Sandfly Reserve, a bed spring on a tap labelled “spring water”, up ended gumboots(wellingtons) in a patch of grass with a sign “Last Irish sky diver to land here”, a computer mouse caught in a trap, the H Bomb mussel float, the list goes on.

Apparently Murray had a standard weather forecast for campers “Fair to fine with rain probable”- pretty accurate I would say!  Deer stalkers would occasionally shoot his horses by mistake so he wrote on the side of them with white paint, ‘Horse’. On the other side he’d write ‘Cow’. He said that was because most of the people coming into the valley were city slickers & couldn’t tell the difference. I wonder if he disposed of his dead horses in the bog down the road….

Just past the camp were the signs that a massive landslide had happened recently. In fact it was mid September last year, it covers 2 hectares and is up to 3 metres deep in places.Higher up the mountain side it was amazing to see how narrow the gash from where it had all come was. It would have probably been contained, as it came down, by a solid rock canyon higher up and then fanned out as it moved down to the gentler slope.

It was sad to see so many huge mature trees dead & dying, their roots smothered by the concrete like material. It looks like the landslide just reached the Hollyford River before petering out. I’m sure the road would have been closed for a good number of days isolating Gunns Camp.

Our final stop was at the Lake Marian Falls & the Lake Marian walking track which is a three hour return walk up quite a steep & difficult track. Remember the hanging valley photo back at the beginning? That is where the track heads to. We decided we’d do that walk later in the week if we had the time (and the inclination) and just walk the short track to the waterfall this time.

 

 

There was yet another swingbridge, crossing the beautiful Hollyford River and then a short walk through the rainforest with its emerald green fern & moss carpeted floor up to the Marian Falls or Cascade as I’ve seen them also called. A narrow gantry hugs the rock wall to the top of the cascade and then the track continues on up to the lake.



Marian Waterfall